Google sued in Japan over 'Street View' of underwear

After Pennsylvania case, Google again stumbles over another privacy issue as its Street View cameras captured the image of a Japanese woman’s underwear.

I was overwhelmed with anxiety that I might be the target of a sex crime. It caused me to lose my job, and I had to change my residence,” Japan's Mainichi Shimbun quoted the woman as saying from the proceedings of a district court.

Google featured its street view technology in Google Maps and Google Earth in 2007 to provide panoramic views from street level, in cities and towns all over the world. Its high-resolution images help users to zoom down to street-level detail for tours of a region with more realistic 360 degree look.

But Google has been facing serious issues for entering into privacy ever since it launched the feature. Earlier the search engine trespassed on a Pennsylvania family’s property to acquire data for its street view service and got sued by Boring family.

After a long battle, Google confessed to trespassing and paid a penalty of $1 to Aaron and Christine Boring, who sued Google in 2008, seeking penalty for damages on trespassing charges.

Now, Google faces similar privacy issue on the other side of the Pacific but this time it is rather serious since the woman claims she suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder and also from a fear that the exposure of this underwear forced her to consider that Google was actually following her everywhere she went, said the report.

Recently, Google in Europe responded to privacy concerns raised by the German government and allowed residents to check an opt out feature that would prevent their homes from being displayed, said a CBSNews report.